Posts Tagged ‘swarm trap’

A fellow beek from Poland read my swarm trapping book and built a trap. It caught bees, but under it. I’ve seen this happen before. I’m interested in seeing if we, as a beekeepers, can figure out the common denominator of why.

Has anyone else built a trap that caught bees under it? How large was your entrance hole? How large was the swarm? How big was the trap?

I’m looking to see if there is a trend. In his photo, and from his video I see a undersized hole and a huge swarm.

If anyone else has caught a underslung swarm, please comment below with the:

How large was your entrance hole? (i.e. 1″ diameter)

How large was the swarm? (ie. small/medium/big/huge/it-carried-off-the-trap)

I’ve heard reports of the first swarm of 2012 on Feb 29. I think our season is 2 week ahead of our normal schedule here in Texas. So if you are going to be swarm trapping, you should put your traps out 1-2 weeks before your first known swarm. For Texas, that date just got moved up to about Feb 20 for next year.

The bloom is already out in the Texas Hill Country. I saw Henbit, and wild Mustard in late January. Irises blooming in February and mayflies out in late February, so it looks like a weird Spring. Right now my bees are bringing in plenty of pollen and aren’t eating much pollen patties. Pollen is yellow and a little bright red. (no idea). Mountain Laurel and dandelion is being worked.

I’ve already seen Bluebonnets out and our major honeyflow plant, Indian Blanket, shows up after Bluebonnets. So that may show early and stay a while.

I’ve finishing writing my new book on swarm trapping, it has cleared the editor and is now at the designer. It looks to be about 55 pages with 36 photos.
I’m putting it out as both a kindle book and via Amazon as a printed book.

Back from my trip out to West Texas. Got a little under the weather, the wife and I caught a minor cold from my baby nephew. But I was still up for checking a swarm trap today, the trap set at the flood settlement pond. It finally caught one, saw consistent bee traffic going in and out. Just before I left for the trip, I noticed that the swarm trap next to my driveway caught another swarm. So that puts the count at 4 swarms caught this season. I think I only have 10 traps deployed right now. I haven’t even checked the 2 near the school or the one in the park north of me.

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So I intend to move these after dark sometime this week. Roberto caught a swarm too, so we will move his at the same time.